Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 44
Butter on Your Waffles
There are ideas that shout. Butter on Your Waffles is not one of them. It waits quietly until the day you need it.
It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.
What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.
Consider the farmer. He does not argue with the season; he arranges his work inside it. The city man does the opposite — he argues with every Monday and is surprised every Friday.
Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. Print it on a card if you like. Better: print it on a habit.